Research Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

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Research Policy

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/respol

From symbolic values to symbolic innovation: Internet-memes and innovation

Mickael Benaim

Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIOIR) AMBS, University of Manchester, Denmark Road, Manchester M13 9NG, United Kingdom

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

JEL classifications: Innovation studies has largely focused on technological assets, while leaving other sources and forms of in- O33 novation less tackled. Among this neglected corpus, this article stresses the important role played by symbolic Z13 value in the consumption and production processes of innovative goods and services. I explore especially O39 Internet-memes that represent iconic productions of the Internet ‘lead culture’, which embed significant sym- M3 bolic values. This article therefore, refers to the economic sociology and innovation management literature to Keywords: emphasise the force of these creations of symbolic value by culture-lead communities, through their production Internet-meme of Internet-memes. I argue that Internet-memes represent a widespread source of innovation in various sectors Symbolic value (from cultural industries to less expect ones like finance). While exploratory, the present study extends the Symbolic innovation debate on the nature of innovation, its symbolic and cultural aspects and its diffusion processes. It ultimately suggests potential new paths for innovation policies to tackle these new forms of innovations.

1. Introduction creativity” (Solon, 2013). The diffusion’s power of memes is facilitated by specific platforms: such as dedicated (e.g. , or In 1966 the Beatles were said to be more popular than Jesus. Half a Ihascheezburger); video platforms (e.g. YouTube, Vine or Dailymotion); century later the Fab Five seem to have been succeeded by an hetero- social media (e.g. Facebook, or Weibo); direct e-mails or fora. geneous zoo: Keyboard cat, , Confession Bear, Dramatic Chipmunk After imitations or remix processes, it finally becomes part of the In- or Charlie the Unicorn. Who are they? These are examples of Internet- ternet culture and is recognised as an Internet-meme. This phenomenon memes. With over 3 billion of Internet users (UN, 2014), the Internet concerns sometime an entire web-user community and sometime a Culture – and its iconic memes – expanded with the facilities to pro- more specific part of this culture (Schiffman, 2012; Knobel and duce, diffuse and remix digital contents. These online productions are Lankshear, 2005). Importantly, the contents is not viral but memetic. the common blocks of a growing culture that is shaping our daily ex- ‘Viral’ consists in an increasing of the scale of an audience by an epi- perience of Internet. But its influence goes much further than a cultural demic digital diffusion, whereas ‘memetic’ implies a more participative niche trend or obscure geeky characters. Internet-memes, because of process (Burgess, 2008; Jenkins et al., 2009; Schiffman 2014) (Fig. 1). their natures and their generations and diffusion processes may impact There is basically a diversity of Internet-memes: animations, ani- both productions and innovations in many sectors and are thus worthy mutations, videos, pictures and or musical productions. Knobel of exploration. and Lankshear (2005) established a typology of five main meme media In order to acknowledge the significance of Internet-memes, there is and idea types including: collaborative, absurdist humour in multi- first a need to clarify what an Internet-meme is. In his book, The Selfish media forms; fan-based memes; hoax memes; celebrations of the absurd Gene (1976), Richard Dawkins defined memes as cultural element of or unusual; and social commentary (social critiques, political com- individuals that can be replicated and transmitted by others through an ments, social activist). These productions generate in their wake a imitation process. More especially, “memes can be ideas; symbols; or myriad of contributions, following a more complex process than some practices formed in diverse incarnations, such as melodies; catch-phrases; of their regressive contents might suggest. Indeed, as pointed by clothing fashion; or architectural styles” Schifman (2012, p. 188). The Schifman (2012) a meme needs a “creative user engagement in the form of main difference between the original biological term ‘meme’ and its parody, pastiche, mash-ups or other derivative work”, involving imitation web cousin is that the mutation process appears in the first case by processes (parroting element from a meme) or re-mix (re-edition). random changes and is diffused according to a Darwinian selection Those types refer in one way or another to pre-existing social and process whereas Internet memes are “altered deliberately by human cultural constructs; norms; values or specific environments. In other

E-mail address: [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.02.014 Received 28 July 2015; Received in revised form 1 June 2017; Accepted 19 February 2018 0048-7333/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Benaim, M., Research Policy (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.02.014 M. Benaim Research Policy xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx

Fig. 1. The generation of Internet-memes. Source: Author’s elaboration words, beside their apparent ‘stupid’ forms and contents, internet devices; easier and faster access to online sharing platforms and the memes are hiding huge symbolic values embedded in a complex cul- normalisation of the sharing of personal content. It is also linked to the tural context. Symbolic value is “the immaterial value attributed to an fact that people have more cats in their environment and offer them object or an idea and communicates its symbolic meaning” Ekstrom (2011). higher level of care (Holbrook and Woodside, 2008). As a consequence This “synergy of characteristics related to products’ attractiveness/desir- Internet platforms are inceasingly cats-full5. We can also link the evo- ability to consumers” (Hauge, 2011) is dependent of specific socio-cul- lution of this symbolic value with advertising campaigns: advertisers tural context; and companies are increasingly interested in taking ad- recognise that pets create a membership-feeling among consumers vantage of these symbolic values. Indeed firms increasingly negociate which influences their behaviour (see Lancendorfer et al., 2008). More and produce symbolic values through the design and production of the recently a new meaning was associated with cats: it includes that they products; their marketing, branding & mediating; and their retail and are the symbols of cuteness but overall they are a symbol of the con- consumption (Hauge, 2015). These activities are becoming even more nected community/society that has moulded them (see also Myrick, critical since the new meanings1 – as in Internet-memes – are increas- 2015). The growing number of , videos of cats and cat- related ingly shared world-wide and not solely restricted to a geographically memes – because of their strong symbolic value – may explain this re- localised community. use by marketers. This movement in marketing’s communication il- To illustrate, we could dissect the symbolic value of a specific lustrates how lolcats, and more generally, Internet memes – because of Internet memes. An iconic meme is the Lolcat2 (see two examples their strong and deeply rooted symbolic value within lead-communities below). As a construct, a has to follow three basic principles. – are potentially important intangible assets for firms. As described by First of all, it has to be funny (which has a large spectrum of subjective Ravasi and Rindova (2004) firms accumulate “cultural capital through a appreciation). Secondly it must include a picture of a cat. And thirdly systemic exposure to sub-cultural variety, especially to cultures that generate the English-slang funny text should be written in some specific font significant amount of visible symbols”. Firms in many sectors could benefit (Impact, Arial Black or sans-sheriff fonts). As defined by the Wikipedia from lead-cultures (by analogy with Von Hippel ‘lead users’) within community, “the text is often idiosyncratic and grammatically incorrect, their innovative production process (Parmentier and Mangematin, and its use in this way is known as ‘lolspeak’ or “kitty pidgin”() . 2014) by referring to their symbolic values and by mobilising their Lolcats were gathering a large online community, then became generation and diffusion processes. To my knowledge; this has not been Internet-memes and slowly were reused by many firms. To understand explored through the prism of the Internet memes. how firms can evaluate such regressive contents will require tracking While sometimes dismissed as trivial, Internet-memes have been the their cultural contexts and evolution: the symbolic value of Lolcats object of several studies in the social and computer sciences – including being deeply rooted in the inter-relations of people with cats from the the recent contributions of Shifman (2013, 2014) – but, to my knowl- early domestication of cats (Linseele et al., 2007; Hu et al., 2013; Van edge, not much in innovation studies. The present article therefore Neer et al., 2014) and in the ancient beliefs of Egyptian dynasties (e.g. addresses Internet-meme as an innovation phenomenon. Memes – with the god Re or the goddess Bastet3) or in the Middle-Age (Darnton, their high and deeply rooted symbolic values – have mutated into 1984). Examples of these symbolic values can also be seen in recent physical goods; they have became resources for economic sectors and, displays (e.g. Zhao Cai Mao in China or Maneki Neko in Japan); or as I will emphasise, they have become a source of innovation in many commercial uses (e.g. the Hello Kitty phenomena) that both contribute sectors. to the good image of cuteness associated to ()cats today4. The reminder of this article is organised as follows. The next section But what is surprising is the evolution of the symbolic value asso- (II) will present the concept of symbolic value and emphasises the re- ciated with cats is that this seems to have taken advantage of Internet to levance for firms’ competitiveness of such symbolic assets embedded in become now ‘memetic’ (Shifman, 2012). One of the explanations of this Internet-memes. I will then provide empirical evidence that Internet movement might stand on the democratisation of camera and recording memes represent important inputs to various innovative activities (section III). This exploration of Internet-memes opens discussions and challenges (section IV) on the existing conceptualisation of innovation 1 See Noth (1990) for further exploration of semiotics’ concepts such as meaning (p92), because of their nature, forms and their specific generation and diffu- signs (p79) or symbols (p115) sion process. The findings argue for a better consideration in innovation 2 “LOL” a contraction of “Laugh out Loud”, and “Cat” that simply refers to the feline 3 During the second dynasty (2890 B.C.), Bastet divinity has evolved over time and was studies of new forms of digital products that are spurring and impacting associated as the goddess of music, housing, and pregnancy: the word ‘feline’ itself shares many economic sectors. common etymological roots with ‘female’ 4 Note that Japan had been a fertile field for the “moe”–i.e. synonym of cute, at- tracting, mania – with the Otaku culture. This was partially spread by the 2channel online forum. Also, Giko or Gikoneko the cat – drawn with computer graphic technics (Shift JIS 5 Turning Internet to a kind of Fubirai Island (a Japanese « paradisiac » island mostly art) – is recognized as the more ancient Japanese visual in 1999. populated by cats)

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